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Chris Kelly: How Can Scranton Find A Talented Mayor For $50G?

Editor’s note: And sometimes people are grossly overpaid and get lousy results, but we won’t name any names. And sometimes you do a national search for qualified candidates (that was funded by tax dollars), offer a huge salary to attract the cream of the crop and then STILL give the job to your best pal with almost no hands-on experience.

HELP WANTED: CEO for financially distressed 146-year-old limited partnership drowning in long-term debt and enough past-due bills to choke a goat. Successful applicant will be responsible for managing the needs, wants, safety and endless complaints of 74,000 customers while juggling chronic deficits, anemic revenues, suffocating union contracts and crippling legacy costs using a business model that hasn’t evolved since the advent of indoor plumbing. ANNUAL SALARY: $50,000. Seriously. That is not a typo.

Mayor Chris Doherty’s recent announcement that he will not seek a fourth term as the CEO of Scranton was as anticlimactic as the average January sunset – bleak blue beams bleeding into blackness. Anyone with a calendar saw it coming.

Eleven years into Mr. Doherty’s reign, the Electric City remains powered more by wishful thinking than objective reality. More than 20 years after it blundered into the roach motel that is the state’s Act 47 Distressed Cities Recovery program, Scranton is still stuck. Mr. Doherty promised escape from distressed status by the end of his first term. He failed, but he had a lot of help.